TRACY BOWDEN, PRESENTER: The Prime Minister Tony Abbott has returned from talks in Jakarta facing calls at home to dump his controversial boats turn-back policy.

On his first prime ministerial overseas visit, Tony Abbott noticeably softened his rhetoric towards Indonesia and said he respected its sovereignty.

The Opposition claims Tony Abbott never intended to go ahead with the policy and should now come clean, while diplomatic observers say he now has a golden opportunity to ditch it for the sake of good relations with Indonesia.

National affairs correspondent Heather Ewart reports.

TONY ABBOTT, THEN OPPOSITION LEADER: The turn-back-the-boats option is what we need. ...

... We will turn back the boats where it is safe to do so. ...

... There's no reason why they can't return to ports in Indonesia.

HEATHER EWART, REPORTER: For months the Coalition has been telling Australians it will not only stop the boats, it will turn them back to Indonesia if necessary. The realities of government mean a different story and different language, especially when the red carpet is rolled out in Jakarta.

TONY ABBOTT (present): See, the important thing, if I may so, is not to generate a story, but to stop the boats. The important thing is not to start a fight, but to get things done.

HEATHER EWART: So, on Tony Abbott's first prime ministerial overseas visit, suddenly the rhetoric on towing back boats is toned right down.

TONY ABBOTT: Can I just scotch this idea that the Coalition's policy is or ever has been tow-backs. Our policy, which we've repeated till we're blue in the face, is that we reserve the right to turn boats around where it's safe to do so.

TONY BURKE, OPP. IMMIGRATION SPOKESMAN: He made an election political call that was never going to be able to be delivered. And now, he's caught, because he doesn't want to acknowledge that he has policies he won't implement, but he also knows he can't blow up the relationship with Indonesia.

DAVE MCRAE, LOWY INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY: The tow-back policy was a policy perhaps more suited to winning an election than to achieving policy outcomes.

BILL FARMER, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO INDONESIA: We now have acknowledgment that some things have been badly handled in the past, but other things could have been pedalled more gently and I think a will to do better in the future and that's on both sides.

HEATHER EWART: Diplomacy inevitably took over in talks with the President of Australia's most powerful neighbour.

TONY ABBOTT: We want to do everything we reasonably can to demonstrate to the Government and the people of Indonesia that we respect Indonesia's sovereignty.

DAVE MCRAE: I think it was up to Prime Minister Abbott how big an issue he wanted to make of tow-backs. Even when the Coalition was still in opposition, Indonesia had very clearly signalled their objection to the policy. And when the Government appeared to move ahead with it in its first days in power, that spurred really sustained negative commentary within Indonesia.

HEATHER EWART: The Indonesian Government made it known loud and clear it was not happy on the eve of Tony Abbott's visit.

DEWI FORTUNA ANWAR, ADVISOR TO INDONESIAN VP (Sept. 30): Whatever action that Australia takes should not impinge on Indonesia's territorial sovereignty. So I think that one should pay attention to that.

HEATHER EWART: Tony Abbott did pay attention because he had to. Australia's relationship with Indonesia was too important to do otherwise and the turn-back-the-boats rhetoric could not be allowed to risk that. There was agreement talks on the issue would now go on at a ministerial level, regarded by some observers as a perfect chance to ditch the policy altogether.

DAVE MCRAE: I think the best way for the Coalition government to proceed would be to quietly drop the tow-back policy now. One way they could do it would be, for instance, to appoint a panel that might set very stringent requirements for towing back boats that would effectively mean they would never happen. Then you could move away from the policy in a way that might be politically workable for the Government.

BILL FARMER: It seems to me that they had more than just a routine chat about these issues. I think the two leaders seemed to have reached some pretty good ideas about how those issues can be advanced. And I think that's a really important outcome. I think the atmospherics are really positive now.

HEATHER EWART: And in the spirit of good atmospherics, Tony Abbott also toned down his campaign pledge to buy back boats in Indonesia and fund payments to informants in villages. In fact, he didn't want to talk about it much at all anymore.

TONY ABBOTT: Everything is done in cooperation with Indonesia. We do nothing in Indonesia other than in cooperation with Indonesians.

DAVE MCRAE: I think buying boats extremely unlikely to be an important and effective part of dealing with the asylum seeker issue, and again, I think Australia needs to be careful in dealing with asylum seekers it doesn't propose measures that detract from broader cooperation.

BILL FARMER: There's a prospect that on issues like turnarounds and buying boats and so on, we'll see some modification of the way in which Australia both talks about that, and more importantly, deals with the Indonesians about it.

HEATHER EWART: Of course, we don't know what was said behind closed doors. It's clear neither side wanted a prolonged public row over the boats issue, which isn't high on Indonesia's domestic agenda. As for Australians, fed a regular diet of "stop the boats" slogans from Tony Abbott, they're now left with confusing signals that the Opposition has pounced on.

TONY BURKE: We've got this bizarre situation where to Australians, Tony Abbott claims he'll implement these stupid policies like boat buybacks. To Indonesia, he says that, "We'll respect your sovereignty." Well, both cannot be true. And as time goes on, Tony Abbott's going to have to, as Australia's Prime Minister, be upfront with the Australian people, come clean.

HEATHER EWART: In that climate, back on home soil, Tony Abbott was tonight talking tough again. Some language never changes.

TONY ABBOTT: I don't think anyone in Indonesia is under any illusions about Australia's resolve to stop the boats. This must happen. The boats must stop.